Content Type: Journal Article / Publishing Institution: Council on Foreign Relations / Publication Year: within 25 Years

1. Mutual Assured Production

Author:: Richard Katz
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Tensions between China and Japan are rising, but an economic version of mutual deterrence is preserving the uneasy status quo. Put simply, China needs to buy Japanese products as much as Japan needs to sell them.
Topic:: Cold War, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:: Japan, China, and Beijing

2. Fake It Till You Make It

Author:: Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Given that Chinese counterfeiting has benefits as well as costs, and considering China's historical resistance to Western pressure, trying to push China to change its approach to intellectual property law is not worth the political and diplomatic capital the United States is spending on it.
Topic:: Economics and Law
Political Geography:: United States, China, and Europe

3. Why Drones Work

Author:: Daniel Byman
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The Obama administration relies on drones for one simple reason: they work. Drone strikes have devastated al Qaeda at little financial cost, at no risk to U.S. forces, and with fewer civilian casualties than many alternative methods would have caused.
Political Geography:: United States

4. Why Drones Fail

Author:: Audrey Kurth Cronin
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Drones are not helping to defeat al Qaeda and may be creating sworn enemies out of a sea of local insurgents. Embracing them as the centerpiece of U.S. counterterrorism would be a mistake.
Political Geography:: United States

5. The Road to D-Day

Author:: Rick Atkinson
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: If Operation Overlord failed, the entire Allied enterprise in World War II faced abject collapse. This new history of the events leading up to D-Day explains why, and what the preparations for success actually involved.
Topic:: War

6. The Coming Arctic Boom

Author:: Scott G. Borgerson
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No matter what one thinks should be done about global warming, the fact is, it's happening. And its effects are not all bad. In the Arctic, it is turning an impassible region into an emerging epicenter of industry and trade.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Canada

7. Syria's Collapse

Author:: Andrew J. Tabler
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: To stop Syria's meltdown and contain its mushrooming threats, the United States should launch a partial military intervention aimed at pushing all sides to the negotiating table.
Political Geography:: United States and Syria

8. Cuba After Communism

Author:: Julia E. Sweig and Michael J. Bustamante
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Cuba has entered a new era of economic reform that defies easy comparison to post-Communist transitions elsewhere. Washington should take the initiative and establish a new diplomatic and economic modus vivendi with Havana.
Topic:: Economics and Reform
Political Geography:: Washington and Cuba

9. The War of Law

Author:: Jon Kyl, Douglas J. Feith, and John Fonte
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In the era of globalization, policymakers are increasingly debating the proper role of international law, and a group of legal scholars have embraced transnationalism, the idea that growing interconnectedness should dissolve international boundaries. But that approach is at odds with basic American principles.
Topic:: Globalization, War, and Law
Political Geography:: America

10. In Defense of Citizens United

Author:: R. Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Hardly the blow to democracy that many painted it as, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United will make American politics more competitive, less beholden to party bosses, and more responsive to the public at large. It may even help break the fiscal stalemate strangling the U.S. economy.
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: America

11. The Next Europe

Author:: Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: To succeed in the twenty-first century, the European Union needs to move forward now toward greater integration. This is how to do it.
Political Geography:: Europe

12. The Rise of Mexico's Self-Defense Forces

Author:: Patricio Asfura-Heim and Ralph H. Espach
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Across Mexico, the lawlessness and carnage of the drug wars have given rise to scores of local self-defense forces aiming to defend their communities. The federal government may be tempted to disband and disarm these armed vigilantes, but until it can shape up its security sector, the local groups offer an imperfect but acceptable alternative.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Mexico

13. Japan Is Back

Author:: Shinzo Abe
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Japan's prime minister speaks openly about the mistakes he made in his first term, Abenomics, Japan's wartime record (and his own controversial statements on that history), and the bitter Senkaku/Diaoyu Island dispute with China.
Political Geography:: Japan, China, and Island

14. Beijing's Brand Ambassador

Author:: Cui Tiankai
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: China's new ambassador to the United States (and a rising star in Beijing) sets out his vision for U.S.-Chinese relations, discusses whether China is a revisionist power, and how it plans to deal with cyber security -- and Japan.
Topic:: Security
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, China, and Beijing

15. Lesser Israel

Author:: Jeffrey Goldberg
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: As two new books detail, Israel's ultra-Orthodox community has formed a partisan bloc able to manipulate the country's political system even as it makes little effort to hide its contempt for secular democracy. But it is not too late for Israeli centrists to push back.
Political Geography:: Israel

16. The Second Great Depression

Author:: J. Bradford DeLong
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The global economic downturn is hardly over, and without a more dramatic set of actions, the United States is likely to suffer another major crisis in the years ahead. A new book by Alan Blinder may be the best general volume on the recession to date, but it paints an overly optimistic portrait of the current situation.
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: United States

17. The Myth of the Omnipotent Central Banker

Author:: Adam S. Posen
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Central bankers have always carried a mystique far beyond justification, whether they are cast as malicious, incomprehensible, or all-powerful. Neil Irwin's new book on monetary policy during the financial crisis should dispel these myths once and for all.

18. The Frankfurt School at War

Author:: William E. Scheuerman
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: War makes for strange bedfellows, and among the oddest pairings that World War II produced was that between "Wild Bill" Donovan's Office of Strategic Services and the emigre German Jewish Marxists he hired to teach Washington about the Nazis.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Washington and Germany

19. Pyongyang Perseveres

Author:: John Delury
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: A new book offers useful insights into the North Korean mindset, but it overlooks the regime's durability and the reformist bent of its new leader, Kim Jong-un. The regime is here to stay, and the United States should pursue more peaceful relations.
Political Geography:: United States and North Korea

20. Against Activism

Author:: Benjamin H. Friedman and Justin Logan
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No abstract is available.
Topic:: Security and Economics
Political Geography:: United States

21. Ending the War in Afghanistan

Author:: Stephen Biddle
Publication Date:: 10-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: International forces in Afghanistan are preparing to hand over responsibility for security to Afghan soldiers and police by the end of 2014. U.S. President Barack Obama has argued that battlefield successes since 2009 have enabled this transition and that with it, “this long war will come to a responsible end.” But the war will not end in 2014. The U.S. role may end, in whole or in part, but the war will continue -- and its ultimate outcome is very much in doubt.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan and Taliban

22. The Rise of the Rest of India

Author:: Ruchir Sharma
Publication Date:: 10-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: When Nitish Kumar became chief minister of the dirt-poor Indian state of Bihar in 2005, kidnapping was said to be the leading industry in the capital city of Patna. People searching for stolen cars were advised to check the driveway of a leading politician, who reportedly commandeered vehicles for “election duty.” Although known for his soft-spoken manner, Kumar cracked down hard. He straightened out the crooked police, ordering them to move aggressively against all criminals, from the daylight robbers to the corrupt high officials. He set up a new fast-track court to speed the miscreants to jail. As Biharis gained the courage to go out on the street, even after dark, Kumar set about energizing a landlocked economy with few outlets for manufactured exports. He focused on improving the yields of Bihar's fertile soil and ushered in a construction boom. Within a few years, a state once described by the writer V. S. Naipaul as “the place where civilization ends” had built one of the fastest-growing state economies in India. And Kumar was recognized as a leader in the new generation of dynamic chief ministers who are remaking the economic map and future of India.
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: India and Patna

23. China's Real and Present Danger

Author:: Avery Goldstein
Publication Date:: 10-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Much of the debate about China's rise in recent years has focused on the potential dangers China could pose as an eventual peer competitor to the United States bent on challenging the existing international order. But another issue is far more pressing. For at least the next decade, while China remains relatively weak compared to the United States, there is a real danger that Beijing and Washington will find themselves in a crisis that could quickly escalate to military conflict. Unlike a long-term great-power strategic rivalry that might or might not develop down the road, the danger of a crisis involving the two nuclear-armed countries is a tangible, near-term concern -- and the events of the past few years suggest the risk might be increasing.
Topic:: Security
Political Geography:: United States and China

24. Africa's Turn

Author:: Macky Sall
Publication Date:: 10-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Since it gained independence from France in 1960, the West African country of Senegal has been a bastion of stability and democracy on a continent that has seen relatively little of either. During the presidency of Abdoulaye Wade (2000–2012), however, the Senegalese exception seemed under threat. The elderly Wade grew increasingly authoritarian and corrupt, and he managed to run for a third term even though the constitution prohibited him from doing so. But in March 2012, Senegalese voters dealt Wade a decisive defeat, electing the reformist candidate Macky Sall instead. Trained in France as a geological engineer, Sall had served in a number of government posts under Wade, including prime minister, before publicly breaking with him in 2007. In opposition, Sall created a new political party; served a second term as mayor of his hometown, Fatick; and organized an anti-Wade coalition. Sall spoke with Foreign Affairs senior editor Stuart Reid in Dakar in June, days before U.S. President Barack Obama's arrival in Senegal for a state visit.
Topic:: Governance
Political Geography:: Africa and Europe

25. A Kinder, Gentler Immigration Policy

Author:: Jagdish Bhagwati and Francisco Rivera-Batiz
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Ever since Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, in 1986, attempts at a similar comprehensive reform of U.S. immigration policies have failed. Yet today, as the Republican Party smarts from its poor performance among Hispanic voters in 2012 and such influential Republicans as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush have come out in favor of a new approach, the day for comprehensive immigration reform may seem close at hand. President Barack Obama was so confident about its prospects that he asked for it in his State of the Union address in February 2013. Now, the U.S. Senate looks poised to offer illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship.
Topic:: Government, Immigration, and Reform
Political Geography:: United States and Syria

26. Left Out

Author:: Henning Meyer
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, social democrats in Europe believed that their moment had finally arrived. After a decade in which European politics had drifted toward the market-friendly policies of the right, the crisis represented an opportunity for the political center left's champions of more effective government regulation and greater social justice to reassert themselves.
Topic:: Economics and Government
Political Geography:: United States, Europe, France, Denmark, and Slovakia

27. The End of Hypocrisy

Author:: Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The U.S. government seems outraged that people are leaking classified materials about its less attractive behavior. It certainly acts that way: three years ago, after Chelsea Manning, an army private then known as Bradley Manning, turned over hundreds of thousands of classified cables to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, U.S. authorities imprisoned the soldier under conditions that the UN special rapporteur on torture deemed cruel and inhumane. The Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell, appearing on Meet the Press shortly thereafter, called WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, “a high-tech terrorist.”
Topic:: Security, Government, and United Nations
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, and India

28. Biology's Brave New World

Author:: Laurie Garrett
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In May 2010, the richest, most powerful man in biotechnology made a new creature. J. Craig Venter and his private-company team started with DNA and constructed a novel genetic sequence of more than one million coded bits of information known as nucleotides. Seven years earlier, Venter had been the first person in history to make a functioning creature from information. Looking at the strings of letters representing the DNA sequence for a virus called phi X174, which infects bacteria, he thought to himself, “I can assemble real DNA based on that computer information.” And so he did, creating a virus based on the phi X174 genomic code. He followed the same recipe later on to generate the DNA for his larger and more sophisticated creature. Venter and his team figured out how to make an artificial bacterial cell, inserted their man-made DNA genome inside, and watched as the organic life form they had synthesized moved, ate, breathed, and replicated itself.

29. Keeping Science in the Right Hands

Author:: Ronald K. Noble
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Ongoing research and discoveries in the life sciences -- the latest and most promising involving synthetic biology -- have led to extraordinary advances that will benefit society. But criminals and terrorists could manipulate such advances to disrupt public safety and national security. Since its founding in 1923, Interpol has learned that the most effective way to keep up with a constantly changing world is by engaging law enforcement and consulting experts in its 190 member countries. Effective solutions to new global security threats require the exchange of information and intelligence. As the methods criminals employ have developed, so, too, has Interpol's capacity for deploying new strategies and offering assistance to stop them.
Topic:: Security and Terrorism

30. Accepting Austerity

Author:: Cindy Williams
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: On March 1, 2013, the U.S. Department of Defense lost $37 billion overnight to sequestration. The cut marked the first wave of a series of planned cutbacks that will shrink future budgets across the federal government by about $1 trillion over nine years. The reductions had been set in motion back in 2011, when a special “super committee” established by the Budget Control Act (BCA) failed to reach a deficit-reduction agreement, triggering automatic cuts designed to punish both parties. Unlike other budget cuts, sequestration is implemented across the board, taking the same percentage bite out of every account. Except for the decision to spare the military personnel account that provides the pay for the United States' men and women in uniform, defense leaders had no choice about where to take the 2013 cuts. And so, with just seven months left in the fiscal year, sequestration abruptly erased about eight percent of the the Pentagon's budget for the year.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States

31. Defense on a Diet

Author:: Melvyn P. Leffler
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The United States is now in a period of austerity, and after years of huge increases, the defense budget is set to be scaled back. Even those supporting the cuts stress the need to avoid the supposedly awful consequences of past retrenchments. “We have to remember the lessons of history,” President Barack Obama said in January 2012. “We can't afford to repeat the mistakes that have been made in the past -- after World War II, after Vietnam -- when our military policy was left ill prepared for the future. As commander in chief, I will not let that happen again.” Similarly, then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told Congress in October 2011, “After every major conflict -- World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the fall of the Soviet Union -- what happened was that we ultimately hollowed out the force. Whatever we do in confronting the challenges we face now on the fiscal side, we must not make that mistake.”
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United States, Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Korea

32. Cyberwar and Peace

Author:: Thomas Rid
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Cyberwar Is Coming!” declared the title of a seminal 1993 article by the RAND Corporation analysts John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, who argued that the nascent Internet would fundamentally transform warfare. The idea seemed fanciful at the time, and it took more than a decade for members of the U.S. national security establishment to catch on. But once they did, a chorus of voices resounded in the mass media, proclaiming the dawn of the era of cyberwar and warning of its terrifying potential. In February 2011, then CIA Director Leon Panetta warned Congress that “the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyberattack.” And in late 2012, Mike McConnell, who had served as director of national intelligence under President George W. Bush, warned darkly that the United States could not “wait for the cyber equivalent of the collapse of the World Trade Centers.”
Topic:: Security and War
Political Geography:: United States

33. Never Saw It Coming

Author:: Alan Greenspan
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: It was a call I never expected to receive. I had just returned home from playing indoor tennis on the chilly, windy Sunday afternoon of March 16, 2008. A senior official of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board of Governors was on the phone to discuss the board's recent invocation, for the first time in decades, of the obscure but explosive Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act. Broadly interpreted, that section empowered the Federal Reserve to lend nearly unlimited cash to virtually anybody: in this case, the Fed planned to loan nearly $29 billion to J.P. Morgan to facilitate the bank's acquisition of the investment firm Bear Stearns, which was on the edge of bankruptcy, having run through nearly $20 billion of cash in the previous week.
Political Geography:: United States

34. Why Banking Systems Succeed -- And Fail

Author:: Charles W. Calomiris and Stephen H. Haber
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: People routinely blame politics for outcomes they don't like, often with good reason: when the dolt in the cubicle down the hall gets a promotion because he plays golf with the boss, when a powerful senator delivers pork-barrel spending to his home state, when a well-connected entrepreneur obtains millions of dollars in government subsidies to build factories that will probably never become competitive enterprises. Yet conventional wisdom holds that politics is not at fault when it comes to banking crises and that such crises instead result from unforeseen and extraordinary circumstances.
Topic:: Government and Politics

35. Bridge to Somewhere

Author:: Jose W. Fernandez
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: International development has moved beyond charity. Gone are the days when the United States would just spend its seemingly bottomless largess to help less fortunate or vanquished countries, as it did after World War II. International development has reached a new, globally competitive stage, bringing with it enormous strategic and economic implications for the United States in the years ahead.
Topic:: Development and War
Political Geography:: United States

36. The Devolution of the Seas

Author:: Alan B. Sielen
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Of all the threats looming over the planet today, one of the most alarming is the seemingly inexorable descent of the world's oceans into ecological perdition. Over the last several decades, human activities have so altered the basic chemistry of the seas that they are now experiencing evolution in reverse: a return to the barren primeval waters of hundreds of millions of years ago. A visitor to the oceans at the dawn of time would have found an underwater world that was mostly lifeless. Eventually, around 3.5 billion years ago, basic organisms began to emerge from the primordial ooze. This microbial soup of algae and bacteria needed little oxygen to survive. Worms, jellyfish, and toxic fireweed ruled the deep. In time, these simple organisms began to evolve into higher life forms, resulting in the wondrously rich diversity of fish, corals, whales, and other sea life one associates with the oceans today.

37. Google's Original X-Man

Author:: Sebastian Thrun
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Sebastian Thrun is one of the world's leading experts on robotics and artificial intelligence. Born in Solingen, Germany, in 1967, he received his undergraduate education at the University of Hildesheim and his graduate education at the University of Bonn. He joined the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon University in 1995 and moved to Stanford University in 2003. Thrun led the team that won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, a driverless car competition sponsored by the U.S. Defense Department, and in 2007, he joined the staff of Google, eventually becoming the first head of Google X, the company's secretive big-think research lab. He co-founded the online-education start-up Udacity in 2012. In late August, he spoke to Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose in the Udacity offices.
Political Geography:: United States and Germany

38. The Spoils of War

Author:: Max Hastings
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: For decades, World War II suffused the hearts and minds of the American generation that experienced it as “the good war,” in which Allied virtue eventually triumphed over fascist evil. Today, Western societies are mature enough to adopt a more nuanced perspective. There remains no doubt that “our side” deserved to win; terrible consequences would have befallen the world following an Axis victory. But the Allied cause was morally compromised by the need to enlist the services of Joseph Stalin's tyranny in order to defeat the forces of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: America

39. India and Ideology

Author:: Pankaj Mishra
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: According to Perry Anderson's new book, The Indian Ideology, India's democracy -- routinely celebrated as the world's largest -- is actually a sham. It is fatally compromised by its origins in an anticolonial struggle led by the “monolithically Hindu” Congress party, which Anderson holds largely responsible for the bloodiness of the partition of the British-ruled subcontinent in 1947. Anderson describes India's most famous leader, Mahatma (“Great Soul”) Gandhi, as a crank and a “stranger” to “real intellectual exchange.” Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi's political disciple and India's first prime minister, was a mediocrity. And both of these upper-caste maladroits were considerably inferior to their sharpest critic, B. R. Ambedkar, the leader of the Dalits (low-caste Hindus) and the main framer of India's constitution.
Political Geography:: India

40. In Search of the Real China

Author:: John Pomfret
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: My First Trip to China: Scholars, Diplomats, and Journalists Reflect on Their First Encounters With China.  Edited by Kin-Ming Liu. East Slope Publishing, 2012, 316 pp. $28.00. Over the last decade or so, historians and journalists have chipped away -- some with sledgehammers, others with mallets -- at several long-standing myths about China's past. China wasn't all darkness and pain before the communist revolution of 1949, and Western efforts to change the country, long portrayed by historians as a tragic dead end, have been far more successful than anyone could have ever dreamed -- to cite just two. The weight of these and other revelations should demand a fundamental reassessment of China's position in the world, both in the past and going forward. But don't hold your breath. China scholars and average citizens alike still cling to their own personal notions of the “authentic” China, deeply rooted in the soil of their imaginations.
Political Geography:: China

41. Border Battle

Author:: Enrique Krauze
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico. By Amy S. Greenberg. Knopf, 2012, 344 pp. $30.00 (paper, $16.95). Every country sooner or later confronts the sins of its past, though rarely all at once. In recent decades, historians of the United States have revealed and explored the sins of American imperialism, recounting in detail Washington's interventions in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Yet they have largely overlooked American meddling in Mexico. Consequently, few in the United States recognize that the Mexican-American War (1846–48) was Washington's first major imperialist venture. Fewer still would understand why future U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant, who fought in Mexico as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, would come to see it as the country's most “wicked war.”
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United States, Washington, Middle East, Latin America, Mexico, and Southeast Asia

42. The Case for International Law

Author:: Harold Hongju Koh and Michael Doyle
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In “The War of Law” (July/August 2013), Jon Kyl, Douglas Feith, and John Fonte purport to explain the state of international law and how it “undermines democratic sovereignty.” Their portrayal, however, hardly rises above caricature. Their legal prescriptions ignore constitutional history and, if followed, would drastically weaken U.S. foreign policy. The authors may not like the contemporary practice of international law, but their own ideas are painfully antiquated, better suited to an insular nineteenth-century nation than the great power the United States has become.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, International Law, and Law
Political Geography:: United States

43. How to Copy Right

Author:: Kal Raustiala, Steven Tepp, and Chritopher Springman
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In their essay “Fake It Till You Make It” (July/August 2013), Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman urged the United States to “relax” when it comes to the flagrant disregard for intellectual property laws in China. The authors make two essential arguments: first, that the United States in its early days, like China today, was a “pirate nation,” and second, that copying drove the United States' economic growth. As China's economy develops, they say, so, too, will its “balance of interests.” Like the United States before it, China will rely less on copying and “adopt a less permissive approach” to copyright infringement -- not in response to U.S. prodding but on its own initiative.
Political Geography:: United States and China

44. A Far Cry From Failure

Author:: Michael O'Hanlon
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Stephen Biddle and Karl Eikenberry are outstanding public servants and scholars, but their respective articles on Afghanistan (“Ending the War in Afghanistan” and “The Limits of Counterinsurgency Doctrine in Afghanistan,” September/October 2013) convey excessively negative assessments of how the war is going and of Afghanistan's prospects. Their arguments could reinforce the current American malaise about the ongoing effort and thereby reduce the odds that the United States will continue to play a role in Afghanistan after the current NATO-led security mission there ends in December 2014. That would be regrettable; the United States should lock in and solidify its gains in Afghanistan, not cut its losses.
Topic:: NATO and War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan and United States

45. The Real Drone Debate

Author:: Anish Goel
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In their respective articles “Why Drones Work” and “Why Drones Fail” (July/August 2013), Daniel Byman and Audrey Kurth Cronin make arguments that are not mutually exclusive. Byman emphasizes that U.S. drone strikes have decimated al Qaeda's senior leadership; Cronin, that they have galvanized extremist recruiting and soured foreign public opinion of the United States. Both points are undoubtedly true, and to argue otherwise in either case would be to deny the basic realities of U.S. drone warfare. Both authors neglect to mention, however, that the use of drone strikes needs to be tempered by the domestic political realities in the countries where they are carried out. Only then can drone warfare achieve the benefits outlined by Byman while minimizing the drawbacks explained by Cronin.
Political Geography:: United States

46. Arctic Bungle

Author:: Mike Wenstrup
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Scott Borgerson (“The Coming Arctic Boom,” July/August 2013) is right to argue that “Alaska should invest its considerable wealth in its underdeveloped university system, finance ambitious infrastructure projects, and create policies that attract talented immigrants and encourage them to start new businesses, such as renewable energy ventures.” Unfortunately, the recently passed Alaskan Senate Bill 21 reduces the income Alaskans receive from oil produced on public lands. Alaska has already begun to run deficits, is unable to finance university investments, and, for the fourth straight year, has frozen funding for basic classroom instruction. Oil companies have high profit margins yet pay less for extracting oil in Alaska than in Norway or countless other countries. Alaskan Governor Sean Parnell is squandering an opportunity to convert oil wealth into human and physical capital. Alaska's oil resources are finite, and the state should invest the profits now in capital development and economic diversification.
Topic:: Development, Economics, and Oil
Political Geography:: Norway and Alaska

47. NATO's Victory in Libya

Author:: Ivo Daalder and James Stavridis
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: NATO's operation in Libya has rightly been hailed as a model intervention. The alliance responded rapidly to a deteriorating situation that threatened hundreds of thousands of civilians rebelling against an oppressive regime. It succeeded in protecting those civilians and, ultimately, in providing the time and space necessary for local forces to overthrow Muammar al-Qaddafi. And it did so by involving partners in the region and sharing the burden among the alliance's members. NATO's involvement in Libya demonstrated that the alliance remains an essential source of stability. But to preserve that role, NATO must solidify the political cohesion and shared capabilities that made the operation in Libya possible -- particularly as its leaders prepare for the upcoming NATO summit in Chicago this May.
Topic:: NATO
Political Geography:: Europe, Libya, and Kosovo

48. Rethinking Latin America

Author:: Christopher Sabatini
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Running down the list of the U.S. State Department's Latin America policy objectives in El País in September 2010, the economist Moisés Naím noted that they focused almost exclusively on domestic concerns: building democratic institutions, promoting local social and economic opportunity, and so forth. These issues were not only given a higher priority in policy toward Latin America than they were for other regions, but they were also issues largely beyond Washington's ability to control. Naím was correct, but the point can be taken further. The focus on politics within Latin American states rather than on relations between them is characteristic not simply of the State Department but also of the Latin American regional studies community in the United States more generally, from where the U.S. policy and advocacy community absorbs much of its personnel and intellectual orientation. Such attitudes have harmed U.S. policy by focusing excessive attention on small countries with little geostrategic influence and fostering the facile notion that political and economic liberalization are the necessary and sufficient criteria for the advancement of all major U.S. interests. This approach has distorted Washington's calculations of regional politics and hampered its ability to counter outside influences and deal sensibly with rising regional powers. U.S. scholars and policymakers need a reminder that development does not mean the end of politics and that twenty-first-century Latin America has its own, autonomous power dynamics. A little realism would go a long way. THAT '80S SHOW When it comes to Latin America, for decades U.S. universities and regional studies centers have focused almost exclusively on matters of comparative politics and political and economic development. In the 1970s and 1980s, the last time scholars paid much attention to the region's international relations, their chief concern was the workings and implications of U.S. hegemony. The issue facing both scholars and policymakers today, however, is what happens as U.S. power declines and new forces in the region emerge, and unfortunately, when it comes to these questions, there is little intellectual capital on which to draw.
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: United States and Latin America

49. Chinese Computer Games

Author:: Adam Segal
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In March 2011, the U.S. computer security company RSA announced that hackers had gained access to security tokens it produces that let millions of government and private-sector employees, including those of defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, connect remotely to their office computers. Just five months later, the antivirus software company McAfee issued a report claiming that a group of hackers had broken into the networks of 71 governments, companies, and international organizations. These attacks and the many others like them have robbed companies and governments of priceless intellectual property and crucial military secrets. And although officials have until recently been reluctant to name the culprit, most experts agree that the majority of the attacks originated in China. In response, analysts and policymakers have suggested that Washington and Beijing work toward some form of détente, a broad-based agreement about how countries should behave in cyberspace that might eventually turn into a more formal code of conduct. Proponents argue that the two sides' long-term interests are aligned, that one day China will be as dependent on digital infrastructure for economic and military power as the United States is today. As Major General Jonathan Shaw, the head of the British military's Defence Cyber Operations Group, has said, China's “dependence on cyber is increasing, the amount of cybercrime taking place inside that society is huge, and the impact on their economic growth and their internal stability is also going to be huge. . . . There's more common ground than people might suggest.”
Political Geography:: United States, China, Washington, and Beijing

50. The Case for Space

Author:: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama articulated his vision for the future of American space exploration, which included an eventual manned mission to Mars. Such an endeavor would surely cost hundreds of billions of dollars -- maybe even $1 trillion. Whatever the amount, it would be an expensive undertaking. In the past, only three motivations have led societies to spend that kind of capital on ambitious, speculative projects: the celebration of a divine or royal power, the search for profit, and war. Examples of praising power at great expense include the pyramids in Egypt, the vast terra-cotta army buried along with the first emperor of China, and the Taj Mahal in India. Seeking riches in the New World, the monarchs of Iberia funded the great voyages of Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan. And military incentives spurred the building of the Great Wall of China, which helped keep the Mongols at bay, and the Manhattan Project, whose scientists conceived, designed, and built the first atomic bomb.
Political Geography:: China, America, India, and Egypt

51. God and Caesar in America

Author:: David Campbell and Robert Putnam
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: A Feb. 29 update to the print story from the March/April issue: In the wake of the Great Recession it would seem natural that the 2012 election would be fought over economic issues. Yet so far in the Republican primaries, we have seen social issues, and religion especially, move to the forefront. Rick Santorum is only the latest in a series of Republicans who have infused their campaigns with talk about God. Even Mitt Romney, a Mormon who has generally tried to avoid discussing religion, has recently pledged to defend "religious liberty" against the Obama administration. Increasingly, the rhetoric of the leading Republican contenders echoes the Republican fringe of twenty years ago. Then, we heard Pat Buchanan -- the quintessential protest candidate -- bombastically declare that America was in the midst of a culture war. Today, the frontrunners all play to the Republican base by describing the White House's "war on religion."
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: America

52. The Future of U.S.-Chinese Relations

Author:: Henry Kissinger
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: On January 19, 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao issued a joint statement at the end of Hu's visit to Washington. It proclaimed their shared commitment to a “positive, cooperative, and comprehensive U.S.-China relationship.” Each party reassured the other regarding his principal concern, announcing, “The United States reiterated that it welcomes a strong, prosperous, and successful China that plays a greater role in world affairs. China welcomes the United States as an Asia-Pacific nation that contributes to peace, stability and prosperity in the region.” Since then, the two governments have set about implementing the stated objectives. Top American and Chinese officials have exchanged visits and institutionalized their exchanges on major strategic and economic issues. Military-to-military contacts have been restarted, opening an important channel of communication. And at the unofficial level, so-called track-two groups have explored possible evolutions of the U.S.-Chinese relationship. Yet as cooperation has increased, so has controversy. Significant groups in both countries claim that a contest for supremacy between China and the United States is inevitable and perhaps already under way. In this perspective, appeals for U.S.-Chinese cooperation appear outmoded and even naive.
Political Geography:: United States, China, America, and Washington

53. The Arab Spring at One

Author:: Fouad Ajami
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Throughout 2011, a rhythmic chant echoed across the Arab lands: "The people want to topple the regime." It skipped borders with ease, carried in newspapers and magazines, on Twitter and Facebook, on the airwaves of al Jazeera and al Arabiya. Arab nationalism had been written off, but here, in full bloom, was what certainly looked like a pan-Arab awakening. Young people in search of political freedom and economic opportunity, weary of waking up to the same tedium day after day, rose up against their sclerotic masters.
Topic:: Economics and Oil
Political Geography:: America, Europe, and Arabia

54. Why We Still Need the World Bank

Author:: Robert Zoellick
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In 2007, the World Bank was in crisis. Some saw conflicts over its leadership. Others blamed the institution itself. When the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the cornerstone of what became the World Bank Group, was founded in 1944, poor and war-torn countries had little access to private capital. Sixty years later, however, private-sector financial flows dwarfed public development assistance. “The time when middle-income countries depended on official assistance is thus past,” Jessica Einhorn, a former managing director of the World Bank wrote in these pages in 2006, “and the IBRD seems to be a dying institution.” In roundtable discussions and op-ed pages, the question was the same: Do we still need the World Bank?
Topic:: War and World Bank
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Japan, and Europe

55. Clear and Present Safety

Author:: Michael Cohen and Micah Zenko
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Last August, the Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney performed what has become a quadrennial rite of passage in American presidential politics: he delivered a speech to the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. His message was rooted in another grand American tradition: hyping foreign threats to the United States. It is “wishful thinking,” Romney declared, “that the world is becoming a safer place. The opposite is true. Consider simply the jihadists, a near-nuclear Iran, a turbulent Middle East, an unstable Pakistan, a delusional North Korea, an assertive Russia, and an emerging global power called China. No, the world is not becoming safer.” Not long after, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta echoed Romney's statement. In a lecture last October, Panetta warned of threats arising “from terrorism to nuclear proliferation; from rogue states to cyber attacks; from revolutions in the Middle East, to economic crisis in Europe, to the rise of new powers such as China and India. All of these changes represent security, geopolitical, economic, and demographic shifts in the international order that make the world more unpredictable, more volatile and, yes, more dangerous.” General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concurred in a recent speech, arguing that “the number and kinds of threats we face have increased significantly.” And U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reinforced the point by claiming that America resides today in a “very complex, dangerous world.”
Topic:: Terrorism
Political Geography:: United States, China, America, Middle East, and India

56. The Iraq We Left Behind

Author:: Ned Parker
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Nine years after U.S. troops toppled Saddam Hussein and just a few months after the last U.S. soldier left Iraq, the country has become something close to a failed state. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki presides over a system rife with corruption and brutality, in which political leaders use security forces and militias to repress enemies and intimidate the general population. The law exists as a weapon to be wielded against rivals and to hide the misdeeds of allies. The dream of an Iraq governed by elected leaders answerable to the people is rapidly fading away.
Topic:: Government and United Nations
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Washington

57. War Downsized

Author:: Carter Malkasian and J. Kael Weston
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The United States, facing deepening economic and fiscal woes at home, is preparing to withdraw from Afghanistan. More and more policymakers, congressional representatives, and members of the public are calling for the majority of U.S. forces to pull out as quickly as possible and for Washington to shift from an expensive counterinsurgency strategy, in which tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO troops protect the Afghan population, to a cheaper counterterrorism strategy, in which special operations forces strike at terrorist leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Afghans are left largely on their own. The counterinsurgency strategy began in earnest in 2009, when the United States raised its total number of troops in Afghanistan to nearly 100,000. This Afghan surge led to tactical success: Kandahar and Helmand were largely secured, and the number of Afghan police and army soldiers nearly doubled. But it was expensive. In 2011, the U.S. Congress authorized nearly $114 billion for the effort, roughly a fourth of the entire cost of the Afghan war since 2001. Given the current economic climate, such high annual outlays are no longer sustainable. Last June, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that 33,000 American troops will leave Afghanistan by the end of 2012 and that Afghan forces will take the lead in the country's security by the end of 2014. Although it remains undecided exactly how fast the withdrawal will proceed after 2012 and what sort of U.S. presence will remain after 2014, Washington is facing strong domestic pressure to bring its troops home and to focus on rebuilding the economy. At first glance, shifting to counterterrorism would seem the best way to meet this goal. A counterterrorism approach would cut costs by pulling out most U.S. ground troops. Special operations forces would remain in the larger bases, with responsibility for launching missions to kill or capture al Qaeda members, high-level Taliban figures, and leaders of the Haqqani network. What is more, the U.S. Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden last May seemed to give this approach credibility by suggesting that knocking out al Qaeda -- the primary reason why the United States entered Afghanistan in the first place -- does not require tens of thousands of U.S. troops.
Topic:: NATO
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and United States

58. The Globalization of Animal Welfare

Author:: Peter Singer and Miyun Parker
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, articulates the idea that it is wrong to exclude any member of the human species from the circle of moral concern. This enlightened vision was a tremendous advance over earlier, more restricted views about who matters morally; yet it still excludes a far larger number of beings who can both enjoy life and suffer: nonhuman animals. They, or at least those capable of feeling pain, which at a minimum includes all vertebrates, are also entitled to concern. Pain is pain, irrespective of the species of the being that experiences it. Concern for the welfare of animals is not a new idea. In the fourth century BC, the Chinese Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi said that compassion should permeate relations not only between humans but also between all sentient beings. Buddhist teachings consider caring for all sentient beings a central ethical precept. The Indian emperor Ashoka, who ruled in the third century BC, issued edicts against the unnecessary killing and mutilation of animals, including hunting for sport. He also established animal hospitals and promoted, but did not require, a vegetarian diet. In seventeenth-century Japan, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, the so-called Dog Shogun, enacted various rules protecting animals, especially dogs. The Hebrew Bible requires that the Sabbath be a day of rest for oxen, as well as for humans, and other texts command Jews to relieve the suffering of animals, even if they belong to an enemy. The Koran, too, encourages Muslims to treat animals with kindness; the Prophet Muhammad is said to have cut off the sleeve of his shirt rather than disturb a cat who was sleeping on it.
Topic:: Globalization and Human Rights

59. A Farewell to Fossil Fuels

Author:: Amory Lovins
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Nearly 90 percent of the world's economy is fueled every year by digging up and burning about four cubic miles of the rotted remains of primeval swamp goo. With extraordinary skill, the world's most powerful industries have turned that oil, gas, and coal into affordable and convenient fuels and electricity that have created wealth, helped build modern civilization, and enriched the lives of billions. Yet today, the rising costs and risks of these fossil fuels are undercutting the security and prosperity they have enabled. Each day, the United States spends about $2 billion buying oil and loses another $4 billion indirectly to the macroeconomic costs of oil dependence, the microeconomic costs of oil price volatility, and the cost of keeping military forces ready for intervention in the Persian Gulf. In all, the United States spends one-sixth of its GDP on oil, not counting any damage to foreign policy, global stability, public health, and the environment. The hidden costs are also massive for coal and are significant for natural gas, too. Even if oil and coal prices were not high, volatile, and rising, risks such as fuel insecurity and dependence, pollution-caused illnesses, energy-driven conflicts over water and food, climate change, and geopolitical tensions would make oil and coal unattractive. Weaning the United States from those fossil fuels would require two big shifts: in oil and electricity. These are distinct -- nearly half of electricity is made from coal, and almost none is made from oil -- but power plants and oil burning each account for over two-fifths of the carbon that is emitted by fossil-fuel use. In the United States, three-fourths of electricity powers buildings, three-fourths of oil fuels transportation, and the remaining oil and electricity run factories. So saving oil and electricity is chiefly about making buildings, vehicles, and factories far more efficient -- no small task.
Topic:: Environment and Oil
Political Geography:: United States

60. The Missing Middle in American Politics

Author:: Reihan Salam
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: After Lyndon Johnson's victory over Barry Goldwater in the 1964 U.S. presidential election, the once-mighty Republican Party was reduced to a regional rump. The Democrats won overwhelming majorities in the House and the Senate, which they used to pass Johnson's Great Society legislation. Republicans, meanwhile, were at one another's throats, having endured the most divisive campaign in modern political history. Goldwater had managed to win the Republican presidential nomination over the impassioned opposition of moderate and progressive Republicans, who at the time may well have constituted a majority of the party's members. Moderates blamed Goldwater's right-wing views for the defection of millions of Republican voters.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States, China, and America

61. Poker Lessons From Richelieu

Author:: David Bell
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Armand-Jean du Plessis, better known to history as Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642), spent most of his career contending for and then exercising control over a deeply divided, indebted, and dysfunctional superpower. His country's politics were vicious, and its government paralyzingly complex. In short, if he were dropped into Washington today, he might feel right at home.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Europe and Washington

62. Freedom's Secret Recipe

Author:: Michael Mann
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Francis Fukuyama shot to fame with a 1989 essay called "The End of History?" which he expanded into a 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. His thesis was a reworking of the "end of ideology" argument propounded in the 1950s by Daniel Bell and others, with an even more emphatic twist. "What we may be witnessing," Fukuyama declared, "is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the endpoint of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." The argument seemed hubristic, a product of the era's American triumphalism.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: America

63. Not Time to Attack Iran

Author:: Colin Kahl
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In "Time to Attack Iran" (January/February 2012), Matthew Kroenig takes a page out of the decade-old playbook used by advocates of the Iraq war. He portrays the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran as both grave and imminent, arguing that the United States has little choice but to attack Iran now before it is too late. Then, after offering the caveat that "attacking Iran is hardly an attractive prospect," he goes on to portray military action as preferable to other available alternatives and concludes that the United States can manage all the associated risks. Preventive war, according to Kroenig, is "the least bad option."
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, America, and Iran

64. Cough It Up

Author:: Jack Chow, Shenglan Tang, and Enis Baris
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Yanzhong Huang (“The Sick Man of Asia,” November/December 2011) paints a troubling picture of a China that has rapidly industrialized yet lags in modernizing its health-care system. Yet in his cogent history of China's health policy, much of which centers on self-reliance, Huang puzzlingly omits China's success in winning nearly $1 billion in recent years from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. That the country's health officials have had to resort to tapping a fund ostensibly dedicated to helping the world's poorest countries speaks to their inability to persuade the government to pay for public health with its national coªers. Only when the incongruity of a financial giant getting grants at the expense of impoverished African countries was illuminated did China choose to stop taking Global Fund awards.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Africa, China, and Asia

65. True Peace Is Hard To Find

Author:: David Harris
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: After reading the compelling case made by Yosef Kuperwasser and Shalom Lipner in “The Problem Is Palestinian Rejectionism” (November/December 2011), it was quite jarring to read the companion piece, “Israel's Bunker Mentality,” by Ronald Krebs. Krebs' argument boils down to this: Israel was doing quite nicely as a liberal, secular state until 1967, when a war mysteriously descended on it, and since then an illiberal, ethnocentric nationalism has taken over and redefined the country. In the process, Krebs contends, Israel became enamored with the occupation of territories acquired during the Six-Day War, helped along by a growing ultra-Orthodox community and large-scale Russian immigration.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, Israel, and Palestine

66. Reports Of The Bear's Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

Author:: Mark Adomanis
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Nicholas Eberstadt (“The Dying Bear,” November/December 2011) is surely correct that a rapidly depopulating Russia would be confronted with a number of essentially irresolvable economic, military, and political problems. However, data from Russia's Federal State Statistics Service suggest that over the last decade, Russia's demographic indicators have in fact been getting better. Moreover, this improvement has intensified since the onset of the 2008 global financial crisis, confounding a number of Western experts who predicted that the downturn would have a similar eªect within Russia to that of the country's debt default in 1998, when fertility plummeted and mortality skyrocketed.
Topic:: Political Economy
Political Geography:: Russia and Ukraine

67. Debating Europe

Author:: Norman Davies
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Andrew Moravcsik's review of David Marquand's book The End of the West (“Recent Books on International Relations,” September/October 2011) characterized Marquand as both a political turncoat and a weak-kneed, inconsistent thinker who has reversed his position on European integration. These are damaging accusations, and both are manifestly untrue. Marquand has always been a pillar of the United Kingdom's democratic left; he stuck with the Social Democratic Party from start to finish, and he has never wavered in his advocacy of European integration.
Topic:: International Relations
Political Geography:: United Kingdom and Europe

68. The Crisis of Europe

Author:: Timothy Garton Ash
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: After World War II, Europe began a process of peaceful political unification unprecedented there and unmatched anywhere else. But the project began to go wrong in the early 1990s, when western European leaders started moving too quickly toward a flawed monetary union. Now, as Europe faces a still-unresolved debt crisis, its drive toward unification has stalled -- and unless fear or foresight gets it going again, the union could slide toward irrelevance.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Europe

69. Why the Euro Will Survive

Author:: C. Fred Bergsten
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The euro's naysayers have it all wrong. True, the continent's powerhouses have yet to agree on a clear plan to save the common currency, as each one is seeking to secure the best deal for itself. But they all also know that the collapse of the eurozone would be a political and economic disaster, so they will ultimately pay whatever price is necessary to keep it together.
Topic:: Economics

70. Germany's Unsustainable Growth

Author:: Adam Tooze
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: With the euro in crisis, Germany has come to seem like a lone island of fiscal stability in Europe. Its debt levels are modest, its government bonds are safe havens for investors around the world, and it has avoided the kinds of private credit booms and housing bubbles that have destabilized the rest of the continent. The German economy, fueled by record exports, has grown steadily, expanding by a quarter over the last decade. But beneath the glowing headlines lies a darker story: Germany's economic position is simply unsustainable. For starters, much of its trade surplus has been earned at the expense of the corresponding current account deficits of the European countries in crisis. At the same time, this outsized surplus goes hand in hand with major imbalances within Germany's domestic economy. German businesses have invested their profits abroad, helping finance foreign imports. Meanwhile, as German money has flowed out of the country, domestic investment has languished at unprecedentedly low levels. Germany, like other rich, polluting, and aging countries, faces enormous long-term challenges. Its work force is shrinking, its energy sector needs to be remade, and its public infrastructure has gone too long without improvement. For all the talk of its financial strength, Germany has so far squandered the opportunity to secure long-term economic growth by addressing these challenges through badly needed domestic investments.
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: Europe and Germany

71. Bucking Beijing

Author:: Aaron L. Friedberg
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: United States worries about China's rise, but Washington rarely considers how the world looks through Beijing's eyes. Even when U.S. officials speak sweetly and softly, their Chinese counterparts hear sugarcoated threats and focus on the big stick in the background. America should not shrink from setting out its expectations of Asia's rising superpower -- but it should do so calmly, coolly, and professionally.
Political Geography:: United States, China, America, Washington, and Asia

72. The Other Russia

Author:: Daniel Treisman and Mikhail Dmitriev
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Moscow's anti-Putin protesters have captured the world's attention. But does their message resonate outside the big cities? New research shows that although Russians in the provinces have no taste for revolution, noisy street protests, or abstract slogans, they are deeply unhappy with the current political system and may soon demand change themselves.
Political Geography:: Russia and Moscow

73. The Rise of Settler Terrorism

Author:: Daniel Byman and Natan Sachs
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Israeli authorities in the West Bank have long worried about stopping Palestinian terrorism. Now, they need to add a new item to the agenda: stopping radical Jewish settlers who have begun attacking innocent Palestinians and Israeli soldiers alike. Jerusalem has to the stop the violence, and Washington should help.
Topic:: Terrorism
Political Geography:: Israel and Palestine

74. Obamacare and the Court

Author:: Barry Friedman
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Pundits predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act would make history. In fact, by upholding the individual mandate as a tax, the justices took themselves largely out of the picture, ensuring that the debate over health care will play out in the political sphere, where it belongs.
Political Geography:: United States

75. America the Undertaxed

Author:: Andrea Louise Campbell
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Compared with other developed countries, the United States has very low taxes, little income redistribution, and an extraordinarily complex tax code. If it wanted to, the government could raise taxes without crippling growth or productivity. Tax reform is ultimately a political choice, not an economic one -- a statement about what sort of society Americans want.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States and America

76. The Scottish Play

Author:: Charles King
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: As a referendum on Scotland's independence looms, the question of the region's place in the United Kingdom has become the most pressing issue in British politics. Its experience shows how a smart secessionist party can dismantle a functioning country, and how central governments eager to buy off regions can end up making matters worse.
Political Geography:: United Kingdom

77. Arms Away

Author:: Ethan B. Kapstein and Jonathan Caverley
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: For two decades, the United States has dominated the global arms trade, reaping a broad range of economic and geopolitical benefits in the process. But shortsighted decisions to produce expensive, cutting-edge weapons systems, rather than cheaper, more practical ones, are squandering this monopoly and letting other countries get into the market.
Topic:: Markets
Political Geography:: United States

78. Latin Lessons

Author:: Ray Suarez
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Discussions of Hispanic Americans in the media and on the campaign trail are warped by ignorance about who they really are and what they really want. A new book seeks to fill the gap with a data-rich portrait of this complex community.
Political Geography:: America

79. Government, Geography, and Growth

Author:: Jeffrey D. Sachs
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: According to Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson's Why Nations Fail, economic development hinges on a country's political institutions. But their monocausal analysis ignores other important factors (such as geography) that can also affect growth.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Europe

80. Johnson the Power Broker

Author:: H.W. Brands
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In the latest installment of his epic biography of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro reveals a man who obsessively sought power to assuage a misplaced sense of his own suffering -- but also to help those whose struggles were less abstract.
Political Geography:: United States

81. Iran and the Bomb

Author:: Colin H. Kahl and Kenneth N. Waltz
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: U.S. and Israeli officials have declared that a nuclear-armed Iran is a uniquely terrifying prospect, even an existential threat. In fact, by creating a more durable balance of military power in the Middle East, a nuclear Iran would yield.
Political Geography:: United States, Iran, and Middle East

82. Is Growth Good?

Author:: Frances Beinecke, Dennis Meadows, Jørgen Randers, John Harte, Mary Ellen Harte, and Bjørn Lomborg
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: ENVIRONMENTALISTS DO NOT OPPOSE GROWTH Frances Beinecke In 1970, U.S. President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act into law, launching one of the most successful public health and environmental programs in history. In the first decade that followed, in Los Angeles, the amount of pollution from ozone -- the main component of smog -- exceeded government health standards on 200 days each year. By 2004, that number had dropped to 28 days. In the 1970s, also as a result of polluted air, nearly 90 percent of American children had lead in their blood at levels higher than what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deemed safe, and parents were alarmed by studies showing that lead interfered with cognitive development. Today, only two percent of children have such high levels of lead in their bodies. By controlling hazardous emissions, the Clean Air Act delivered these and many other health benefits. And it did so without curbing economic growth. The United States' GDP has risen by 207 percent since the law was passed over four decades ago. And because the law sparked innovation -- from catalytic converters, which convert toxic exhaust fumes from automobiles into less dangerous substances, to smokestack scrubbers -- pollution reductions have proved relatively inexpensive. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for every dollar the United States has spent on cutting pollution through the Clean Air Act, it has gained more than $40 in benefits.
Political Geography:: United States and America

83. Stimulus or Reform?

Author:: Menzie D. Chinn, Raghuram G. Rajan, and Karl Smith
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Since weak demand is at the heart of the recession, governments need to enact not just structural reforms but also stimulus programs, argues Menzie Chinn. Such reforms, moreover, don't always work out, writes Karl Smith. Raghuram Rajan demurs.

84. Culture Matters

Author:: Oscar Arias
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Latin Americans must look in the mirror and confront the reality that many of our problems lie not in our stars but in ourselves. Only then will the region finally attain the development it has so long sought.
Topic:: Development
Political Geography:: United States and Latin America

85. Less Than Zero

Author:: Josef Joffe and James W. Davis
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: All previous attempts at total nuclear disarmament have failed, as strategic logic and state interest have prevailed over wishful thinking. A similar fate awaits Global Zero, the newest disarmament movement, for similar reasons.
Political Geography:: United States

86. Enforcing the Peace

Author:: Howard M. Sachar
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The Israelis and the Palestinians will never find peace if they are left to negotiate on their own. As has been the case throughout history, great-power leadership is the missing ingredient. Washington must lead the way in enforcing a final-status settlement.
Political Geography:: Washington and Israel

87. Sudan's Secession Crisis

Author:: Andrew S. Natsios and Michael Abramowitz
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Ahead of last weekend's secession referendum in Sudan, Andrew S. Natsios and Michael Abramowitz wrote on the prospects for compromise and reconciliation between the country's north and south.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Sudan

88. The Political Power of Social Media

Author:: Clay Shirky
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Discussion of the political impact of social media has focused on the power of mass protests to topple governments. In fact, social media's real potential lies in supporting civil society and the public sphere -- which will produce change over years and decades, not weeks or months
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States

89. Plan B in Afghanistan

Author:: Robert D. Blackwill
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: There are no easy or cost-free ways to escape the current quagmire in Afghanistan. Although it has problems, a de facto partition of Afghanistan, in which Washington pursues nation building in the north and counterterrorism in the south, offers an acceptable fallback.
Political Geography:: Afghanistan and Washington

90. Finish the Job

Author:: Paul D. Miller
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Since 2001, Afghanistan's economy has grown at an impressive rate and major development indicators in the country have improved dramatically. Even security and the rule of law -- long neglected -- are now improving. Washington and its allies could still win in Afghanistan if they are given the time they need.
Topic:: Security, NATO, Corruption, and Law
Political Geography:: Afghanistan and Washington

91. The Dangers of Nuclear Iran

Author:: Eric S. Edelman and Evan Braden Montgomery
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Iran's acquisition of a nuclear bomb would upend the Middle East. It is unclear how a nuclear-armed Iran would weigh the costs, benefits, and risks of brinkmanship, meaning that it could be difficult to deter Tehran from attacking the United States' interests or partners in the region.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:: United States, Iran, and Middle East

92. The Good News About Gas

Author:: John Deutch
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Thanks to technological advances, in the past few years, vast amounts of natural gas -- particularly shale gas -- have become economically viable. This development is an unmitigated boon for consumers interested in affordable energy and for governments hoping to reduce their countries' dependency on foreign oi.
Topic:: Oil
Political Geography:: Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, North America, and Qatar

93. A Third Way to Palestine

Author:: Robert M. Danin
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Palestinian leaders first embraced armed struggle and then turned to negotiations. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has now initiated a third, pragmatic stage of Palestinian nationalism by building institutions and counting down to statehood. Fayyad's vision is a promising one, and Israel should help him achieve it.
Topic:: Nationalism and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:: Israel and Palestine

94. Small Arms, Big Problems

Author:: C.J. Chivers
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: As U.S. marines fought in Marja last year, they captured the weapons used by Taliban fighters. These arms -- from British Lee-Enfields to Soviet Kalashnikovs to Czech vz. 58s -- tell the story of how many modern wars are fought.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United States

95. Why Moscow Say No

Author:: Andrei Shleifer and Daniel Treisman
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Too often over the last decades, policymakers in Washington have viewed Moscow's resistance to U.S. policies through the lens of psychology. In fact, Russia's foreign policy has been driven by its own rational self-interest.
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, Washington, and Moscow

96. A Leaner and Meaner Defense

Author:: Gordon Adams and Matthew Leatherman
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Pentagon budgets have soared over the last decade, partly because of a failure to prioritize. In the coming age of austerity, major cuts are imperative -- and if done right, they will not harm U.S. interests.
Topic:: Security and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:: United States

97. Why the Rich Are Getting Richer

Author:: Robert C. Lieberman
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Increasing inequality in the United States has long been attributed to unstoppable market forces. In fact, as Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson show, it is the direct result of congressional policies that have consciously -- and sometimes inadvertently -- skewed the playing field toward the rich.
Topic:: Politics
Political Geography:: United States

98. West is Best?

Author:: Timur Kuran
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: A new book by Ian Morris tracks the development of the East and the West over the millennia. But methodological problems lead him to miss the crucial differences between modern and premodern life -- and understate what is really keeping the West ahead.
Topic:: Development, Economics, and History
Political Geography:: China, Europe, and Middle East

99. The Softer Side of War

Author:: Peter R. Mansoor
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The surge in Iraq demonstrated the importance of understanding the influence of culture on warfare. As new books by Dima Adamsky and Gal Luft argue, military and political leaders ignore such issues at their peril.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Iraq

100. Letter to the Editor: Talking to Hamas

Author:: Robert Pastor
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Daniel Byman ("How to Handle Hamas," September/October 2010) correctly argues that peace between Israel and the Palestinians via a two-state solution requires the involvement and acceptance of Hamas. However, he overstates the difficulty of securing Hamas' agreement to a cease-fire and understates the problem of gaining Israel's agreement. Moreover, although Byman acknowledges the importance of Palestinian reconciliation, he does not identify a key reason for its failure.
Political Geography:: Israel and Palestine

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